Greg should reimplement and resubmit... [LWN.net]

Greg should reimplement and resubmit...

Posted Dec 16, 2006 5:07 UTC (Sat) by tgall (guest, #217)
In reply to: Greg just withdrew the whole thing by linus
Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

I wouldn't think this is a new idea, but none the less I'll post it and really it should probably go on lkml but it's late and I'm tired and well this is where i'm posting it.

What seems to be really desired is a system that kicks in at distribution time and is constructed in such a way that all kernel modules are GPL yet have such a low barrier of entry that anyone can build modules. Simple.

Why not include with the kernel a system for building kernel modules which attaches to every kernel module built a small piece of GPL code. Central to the core kernel which loads the module which executes the GPL code and would otherwise not work without it.

The person in their basement is not affected. Those that would distribute binary kernel modules would not longer be able to do so, least not without them being under the GPL.

Now sure someone could fork and remove said feature, but in the grand scheme I suspect there would be little interest in such a kernel after all, without this the world will remained closed in technologies that really should be sharing their specs with the kernel community.

Regards,

Tom

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